Nuclear Nights

Dear Family,

Hello! Another Monday is here! And I'm on, like usual. This week was interesting! Let me see what little things I picked out...

So, this one is actually more for last week, but I forgot to mention it. I received a tie from Elder Berrett! It was really random.  A ziploc bag with the tie and a note in it. The note was mentioning how I commented to Elder Berrett back in Liberia how his tie was Charger's colors, and he told me he'd give it to me when they finished their mission. So he sent it to me! It was really thoughtful. :)

Tie and a kind note from the Berretts

Now, onto this week. This wonderful majestic week.

The week started off great! We worked really hard. We managed to have some great success, and it really proved good. The district meeting was funny, though. Elder Halterman and I didn't go. That's right. We just... Didn't go. Simple as that. We've just gotten so sick of our leaders, so tired of everything... We just didn't go. We've accepted the inevitability of the end of our missions. . . . Just kidding. :) Well, not on the part that we didn't go, we really didn't! But that was because we were figuring things out for the first day of the painter coming. New walls! Woohooo!!! We had to wait a little bit for him to get there, which meant that we missed district meeting. This coming week has a zone meeting ("combined district meeting" :P) on Friday in Takoradi, then the next week is a mission tour with Elder Dube, then we have a zone conference the next week! Party! I haven't had a district meeting in the Sekondi chapel in so long. Or just a normal district meeting, for that matter.

Anyway, we got out on Tuesday and taught a couple of lessons. Then Wednesday came around; the painter came again, but we didn't have to wait for him at all this time. We had a really solid day with 4 lessons! We taught B. and A. with the Julanders, and it was a nice time. :) Sometimes I just smile because I love being there and teaching them.

Thursday was good...ish. This is when the week became interesting. We had a decent day, tried to do some things, etc. But that night... That night was a once in a lifetime experience. It all started when the painter painted our room. He painted it that day, but no big deal, right? It just means some arrangement of the furniture and tornadoes sweeping through our apartment. No, it got bad that night. It got really bad. That's why it's called the "bad" night. The story goes a little bit like this:

We hung up our nets over our beds after putting our room back together. Nothing crazy, but guess what, new nets!!! How awesome is that. Don't worry, by this time we've been having those things hung up for at least 36 hours. Definitely enough time for the massive pesticides to subside and allow us to sleep in peace. Or so we thought.

We went to bed at 10:30! That actually surprised us because of how busy we were putting our room together. But we were proud of ourselves getting to sleep, and everything was calm. The new nets were nice! Nice and big and not holey. Turns out they weren't holy either.

11 pm: Elder Halterman wakes up, his face hurting VERY badly. "What is this??" he's thinking. He sprays cold water over his face. The burning doesn't stop. He decides to sleep on a spare mattress in our main room--no sheet, no net, and no lights. Yeah, no electricity by this point.

Fast forward.

2 am: I wake up, having enough nuclear reactions on my face to power all of Ghana for the next 10 years. And not to mention my arms. My arms were being dipped in lava every second I merely existed. "I know what this is..." I think. I've felt this before. I felt this during my first week of mission, in Point Four. Yes, this is acid burn from the nets. But worse than the first time. I go through the similar process as my companion, spraying water (I even used soap...), wandering about, suffering. "where's my companion, anyway?" I think. "oh, he's out there. That's an incredible idea." I grab a blanket and put it over the mattress and try to get some rest. The fire ants are having a fiesta! No sleep. I get up. I write in my journal. I sit outside on the balcony. Hey! I found a place with a 1/4 mph breeze! WOOHOO! I won't mention how dangerous that ledge was... And then Elder Halterman wakes up. Just kidding, he was mostly awake anyway. He finally noticed me, really. We talk. I took a 10 minute video. We suffered. We cried. Literally, I couldn't use my eyes properly. Tears were streaming! I took a bath to try to cool down. Nope.

5:30 am: Elder Halterman has been asleep for some time, I'm tired as all get out, and after applying some gold bond powder and insect bite cream all over my arms, my arms STILL are melting... But God let me sleep. And I slept. For a whole 1 hour, until Elder Wight was awake and working out. But we still tried to milk our sleep the best we could.

It was a bad night.

We made it through the day, riding on the appointments we had set during the previous day. My arms still hurt. BAD. But we kept going. What else were we going to do? I took a 45 min nap while waiting for a member to show up at the chapel to meet us and go proselyte with us. We made it through. :) But it took its toll on Saturday and Sunday. We taught B. and A. on Saturday! I was getting a bad allergy/cold like thing going on the whole day, killing me. It finally made sense when A. said that it seemed like I didn't have enough sleep, and that can cause something like what I was having. Yep. Oh, they said they'd be baptized on March 28th!!! I'm so excited for that day! And I went to bed really early that night. 8:30 I was OUT. I felt better on Sunday, but not 100%. We had B. and E. come to church! A. was sick, unfortunately. E. is a referral from the 2nd counselor in the bishopric, and we're looking at the 28th for him, too. :)

We played football (soccer) as a district this morning; it was a really fun game. :) To answer your question about exercise... I was doing good at it! And I'm definitely eating better than I was! Other questions... the batteries in the apt aren't lasting as long as they should, but we're on that. I hope they start working better. My apartment mates: Elder Allen's a really musical guy. Like... REALLY musical. He's doing a keyboard class for the ward. He was going to BYU for music before [the mission]. It's pretty interesting to be with him; he makes me look like I'm not as into music. ;) Elder Wight works out all the time, but he's a funny guy. Since he's the young guy amongst us, we get some really funny conversations. And we found out this week that he's colorblind. We had fun showing him all our ties and listening to him mistake the colors. :D All four of us are working together fine, and it's an interesting apartment!

Comments on your email: I'm SO excited to hear about Rikki's baby!!!!! :D [we should learn its gender this week] And thanks for the update about all of the other cousins and such. It's crazy to see their pictures! They've changed!!!! 

Things are going well, and this week should be a good one. :) I know this gospel is true! Really though, it is, and so is the church and all this other stuff. Make sure you do the good things. (<== inspirational quote of the year) I love you all so much. Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Price

PS  [No package yet]. This coming week, I PRAY. Friday. I'm hoping so much.

Plenty of photos this week!

"Making 'beesap' or 'sobolo.' A good drink. Purple, and can stain EVERYTHING, but it's yummy! They sometimes put ginger in it. Sometimes a bit too much. ;) "

"Beach road"

Sekondi!

"Pouring rain"

"District activity last week"

"Beautiful roundabout, chapel, and sunset. :) "